In the commercial printing industry, customers design and order many diverse formats, sizes and quantities of documents for printing to suit their advertising or other needs. These include everything from smaller-sized business cards, post-cards and mail inserts, to multiple-page catalogs and larger-sized products such as posters. The printer often must convert customers' submitted digital files into press-ready files that can print on any commercial printing press. Accordingly, it is desirable for a printer to combine multiple press-ready files for smaller-sized documents of different formats onto one larger-sized press sheet, in order to minimize paper waste and increase press efficiency to maximize profitability.
Also, customers request various production speeds for their products, or “turnaround” time, usually anywhere between 2 days to 2 weeks. The printer, therefore, needs to be able to schedule or distribute printing to its presses and combine orders onto press sheets in such a way that each of those individual customer orders' turnaround time is met, while utilizing press resources as efficiently as possible.
Once the orders are combined, the press operators need to be able to track the group of combined orders, called a “gang,” through their workflow. When using a database workflow system, it is beneficial for the operator to be able to view and track the gang as a single press job while having the ability to view the specific details of the individual orders.